Wolf

I stare at the images for several seconds, conflicting thoughts running through my head as I watch scenes of the government agents showing up at our house repeating over and over again. But before I can think it through, I decide to get it over with quickly and – after lightly moving Sapphire from her place hugging me – dive headfirst into the illusion.

The wait for the illusion is much shorter this time as I quickly find myself back at home on Christmas day. We never really did all that much for Christmas, outside of setting up and decorating the tree. Which we didn’t even do before our parents’ accident. But it was still enjoyable, nonetheless. Especially for mom, who has been in a wheel chair ever since the incident.

Light jingles of Christmas music ring through the room while the younger versions of mom, dad, Katie, and I all sit around the living room in peace. None of us are actually talking right now, but the atmosphere feels peaceful enough that my apprehension about the situation almost begins to wear away a little bit.

Until the doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it,” my younger, fourteen year old self says before getting up, leaving mom and dad along with the eleven-year-old Katie in the living room watching me step around the coffee table at the center of the room, surrounded by the couches to walk over to the hallway, and then up to the front door where I look through the peephole. Just to find several men in suits standing on the other side with black sunglasses.

My younger self slowly backs up before making the hand signals that were taught to me and Katie by dad for ‘danger’, signaling dad and Katie to immediately get up, with dad drawing a knife from his jacket sleeve as he moves over to the door with haste. He then looks through the peephole as well before waving back at us and slowly opening the door.

“Jackson,” he says with a frown after opening it enough just to see the people on the other side.

The man nods his head before looking past my dad and I’s younger selves straight at mom. He then looks back at dad again and says, “If you’re interested, we might have a way to cure your wife.”

This immediately makes my entire family tense up for a split second before relaxing again.

Dad narrows his eyes while tightening his grip on the knife and saying, “Impossible. Do not lie to us.”

I grimace at this, remembering just how badly hurt mom was. Although I don’t remember the exact specifics. Just that her wounds couldn’t be cured by modern medicine. Or at least not the modern medicine that we knew of.

At this point, the government agent – Jackson – leans closer to dad and whispers something. I try to move closer to them in the illusion to hear better, but I find myself locked in place this time, unable to move.

Seriously?

And it looks like this illusion is limiting my hearing as well, since I can’t hear it despite how good my ears are.

After a brief back and forth of whispering between the two, dad steps back and nods to mom, saying, “It’s your choice.”

Mom looks surprised at that, as do the rest of us, but before she can say anything, a different government agent steps forward and states, “We will warn you. There will be a cost to this.”

She stares at the government agent for several seconds, then at us, then at her legs, and eventually begins to roll her chair forwards toward the man.

The younger version of Katie rushes up to mom, grabbing her arm with a worried look on her face, but mom just kisses her on the head and gives my younger self a smiling nod.

I feel tears well up in my eyes as she turns around again and leaves the house after leaning forward to give dad a hug. The last hug he will ever get from her while she still has her memories.

As soon as the door to our house shuts, the illusion shifts. But out of nowhere, the illusion around me begins to glitch out. As if it were constantly shifting between two scenes back to back, with flashes of black and red light in between, making me wonder just what’s going on.

I frown and turn my head to look around, only for the illusion to settle into place again. In a place I’ve never been.

Then an error appears in my vision.

ERROR MESSAGE

UNKNOWN SOURCE HAS INTERFERED WITH THE ILLUSION OCEAN, CHANGING THE ILLUSION TO ONE NOT FROM AMONGST THE USER’S MEMORIES.

ATTEMPTING TO FIX ERROR…

ATTEMPT FAILED.

ATTEMPTING TO FIX ERROR…

ATTEMPT FAILED.

ATTEMPTING TO-

ASDLAPSDVPNASGKJNASF

Before the error message can even finish, a strange energy that I had never seen before suddenly envelops the message before crushing it like a cardboard box. The energy is bright, with glimmering colors of all types, and it gives me a very strange feeling. One of both instinctive fear, and a warm, familiar feeling. As if I’ve seen it before, and as if it resonated with my blood.

Then the error message just… pops. And I’m left standing in an illusion where mom is lying on a surgical bench in a hospital gown, with several men in the room and a couple of women. Each of them are wearing suits except for one of the women, who for some reason has a large glowing rod in her hand. One that looks rather medieval, and is even glowing… with a similar energy to the one I had just seen. But the energy feels as if it’s on an entirely different, much weaker level than the one I had just seen. Like the difference between night and day. Or even the difference between a level 1 and an Administrator.

So… if I’m understanding what I’m seeing correctly… there was magic back on earth before the Initialization occurred…?

Because that… would actually explain how her memories were wiped and her legs healed, actually.

But… could that also mean that we’d be able to get her memories from before then back through magic as well?

I can’t help the smile that splits my face at this, but it turns serious as I hear the woman holding the rod begin speaking.